


Tied

by zeldadestry



Category: Entourage
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 13:22:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7053433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some nights he dreams E still lives in LA.  Vince will see him from a distance and follow him through an enormous crowd.  </p><p>He never reaches him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tied

**Author's Note:**

> takes into account tv show canon, but not the movie's

Some nights he dreams E still lives in LA. Vince will see him from a distance and follow him through an enormous crowd. 

He never reaches him. 

 

He didn’t call it a failure when he and Sophia finally split because, after all the shit that went down with Sasha, his break-ups mean nothing. The fact that he didn’t go off the rails following the end of their relationship is all that counts.

Still, when he hears that she’s married again, to some venture capitalist she knew from college, he can’t help but feel a little slighted, like it’s some kind of proof he could have never been enough for her.

 

“Things are good, here, yeah, of course.” E sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. “But, sometimes-”

“What?”

“Sometimes I miss LA. I miss you guys, you know?”

“Yeah, E, we miss you, too.”

“And I- Sloan and I are good, we are.”

“Ok.”

“But sometimes I don’t think she’s very happy.”

“Very happy is a pretty high standard for anyone.”

“Well, then, that’s not what I meant, smartass. What I mean is- I’m not always sure she’s happy.”

Part of Vince wants to say, I don’t care about her happiness, E, not like I care about yours. So, fuckin tell me, tell me the damn truth. Are you happy? And, if you’re not, is there anything I can do? “I know you. I know you’re doing whatever you can. Maybe you’re right but, even if you are, it’s not on you, E. I know that much.” 

Eric laughs, laughs the way he does when he thinks Vince has just proved himself ridiculous. “Now that’s just a flat out lie, Vin, but you tell it well.”

 

The last time Vince saw Eric and Sloan in person, they met for a late dinner at a restaurant in Soho. Vince can’t remember what he ordered, what they ate for dinner, but he remembers that they drank a lot of wine. 

When Terrance was born, Eric said, “We’ll call her Terry, as a nickname. It wasn’t my first choice for a name, but Sloan loves it, so I’m happy.” 

“This is what happens when you fall for a daddy’s girl, E,” Vince said, and surprised himself with how good the bitterness felt. “You knew exactly what you were getting into.” He said that, but now he thinks his momentary tantrum was stupid. No one ever really knows what’s going to happen in their relationships. People are too complicated to make absolute predictions and life can move fast enough to leave even the best prepared ruined. 

Still, Vince wasn’t expecting Sloan to grimace when Eric mentioned some friend of theirs whose unplanned pregnancy turned out to be twins. “What a nightmare,” Sloan said. “One is enough for me.” She poured herself another glass of wine. “Sometimes one is more than enough!” She winked at Vince, after she said that, and laughed, so he laughed, too. And, anyway, he could sympathize, he was pretty sure it’d be like that for him, if he were a dad. So it was ok, it was a nice moment between them, until Vince turned back to E, and found his friend looking sucker punched and pissed about it. 

When Sloan left to take a call from the babysitter a few minutes later, Vince put his arm around E’s shoulders and said, “Hey, come on. Parenthood is stressful. Everyone knows that.”

“She’s an amazing mom, she really is, but she was an only child, you know?”

“So were you.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I’m just- never mind.” 

Even when they were kids themselves, Eric wanted a big family and Vince knew that. But we can’t have everything we want, he thought, none of us can, come on, you know that. “We can’t- we don’t get everything we want, E.” 

Eric turned his face towards Vince. There was a smear of chocolate at the corner of his mouth and Vince hadn’t wanted any dessert until then. He almost moved in, held back only by a moment’s wonder that he could be so reckless, and then a light went off, Sloan’s flash as she took a picture of them, and Vince pulled away, startled.

“Aw, you guys are so sweet together,” Sloan said, showing E the display of her phone. When she turned it around so Vince could see it, too, there was something sad in her eyes. She knew, Vince realized. She knew how he felt and he wondered how long she’d felt sorry for him. 

Before they separated that night, standing out on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, saying their goodbyes, Sloan said, “You never have to stay in a hotel unless that’s what you want, Vince. We’ve got a beautiful guest room, empty and waiting, so- anytime you want to visit-”

He waited to see if she’d finish the sentence. She didn’t. Eric did. “We’d love to have you.” 

“Thanks for the invitation,” Vince said, sure that he’d never actually accept it.

“Our home is your home,” Sloan said.

It could have been meant as kindness or it could have been meant as torture and he felt like he probably deserved both. She could hate him and he wouldn’t blame her. He knew she had already been far more giving than he could’ve been in her place.

 

Once they started fucking around, both drunk on Vince’s seventeenth birthday, they never really stopped. Together in Queens, yeah, together. Together in LA, same thing. Ok. So, for years, the only time they didn’t? When Eric stayed in New York and Vince first left for California. No matter who else they had in their lives, they still found their way to each other, eventually. Sometimes he thinks that fact should’ve been a bigger signal to him. 

Or maybe not.

Maybe the biggest sign wasn’t that they returned to each other but that they kept drifting apart in the first place. 

He never knew. He could never be sure of what it meant to either of them, and that didn’t bother him, not really, when it was his own life he was betting with, but somehow he could never stand to gamble with Eric’s.

Sloan went back to New York, and Eric went with her, and Vince didn’t follow. 

And now things are the way they are.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” was all Eric ever said about Sophia.

His ill-fated marriage might have generated legendary speculation in the tabloids and in comment sections online, but Vince knew, and he suspected that Eric did, too, that the crash was inevitable, just another example of a dumbass choice he made when he should’ve known better. Anyone who gets married because it seems like their best friend chose someone else over them, and they don’t know what to do, deserves all the shit that comes to them. 

 

“How are you doing these days?”

It’s not subtle and Vince would tell Billy to fuck off if it wasn’t nice to have someone care for a change. “Good. It’s all good.”

“Yeah? Glad to hear it.”

“You?”

“Sobriety is serious shit, don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Right now, it’s got me a little sore.” Billy finishes off his taco in one big bite. “Anyway,” he says, chewing with his mouth full. “I go to yoga a lot. That helps. You should come with me someday.”

Vince would say no, except that Billy’s smart, he’s couching it exactly the way he should, to make it seem like Vince would be doing him a favor, and that’s- it’s generous, how he doesn’t want to insult Vince’s pride, and Vince wants to thank him for that. “Yeah, alright.”

 

The teacher Billy swears by gives private yoga lessons from her condo in Venice and, after they’re finished, Billy suggests they pick up some falafel for lunch. They get their food and drinks to go and eat on the beach. 

“How’s Murphy these days?” Billy asks, and takes a gulp of his green juice.

“Oh, you know.”

“No, I don’t, which is why I asked you.”

“I don’t know- he’s good, I mean- he says he’s good.”

“I tell you, I know I gave him a lot of shit, but I think he had talent. He’s got something almost no suit in this business ever had, he can tell what he likes- he can appreciate a thing in itself, not just because it’s going to make money or win awards, you know?”

“Yeah.” Vince digs his fingertips into the warm sand. “I know.”

“Hey,” Billy says, knocking his shoulder into Vince’s. “You ever, I mean- I always kinda wondered about you two.”

Vince almost never blushes, but he can feel his face heating now. “You’re always so full of shit, Billy,” he mutters.

“Not on this count, because you are so damn easy to read. So, you gonna tell me?”

“You gonna use it, someday, write about it?” Vince glances at him.

Billy shrugs. “Don’t wanna lie to you- that’s always the risk when you talk to a writer. But, I don’t judge, Vince, you know that. And I can pretty much guarantee no one would ever know I was talking about you.”

Vince looks out at the waves. “Yeah, we would hook up. I guess I figured that maybe he was curious about guys but he couldn’t accept that so I was safe. And then, sometimes, I used to really worry that maybe he wasn’t into it at all, that it was something he gave me because he thought I wanted it, and he always tried so hard to make sure I was happy, you know? Satisfied.” Maybe the right word is content. Something better than comfortable. Or maybe it’s actually simpler. Maybe he just wanted Vince to feel safe, and if pressing their bodies together offered that, then, ok, maybe E would’ve wanted it just because Vince did. “I don’t know. It happened, but I don’t know what he thought about it.” 

“I’m not gonna tell you what’s what, Vince, but I think that if someone as high-strung and uptight as the suit sucks your cock then he must really want it.”

“It doesn’t matter, anyway. He’s got a family, now, and even if I’ve done some shit in my life I’m not proud of, I’m not going to take him away from that, you know? That’s something- I couldn’t do that to him. And I couldn’t be ok with myself if I did that to him.”

“Life sucks and then we die but we still gotta know what lines we won’t cross.” Billy pats him on the back. “I feel you on this one, I really do.” 

“Yeah, thanks, buddy.”

 

Vince never thought he wanted the kind of life Eric did, so it’s a little depressing, at forty, to realize the compromises he could’ve made, the things he would’ve gladly accepted, if it meant he and Eric could be together. 

“Daddy, why don’t you call Vince V?” Terry holds her strawberry ice cream cone up to Vince’s face and he takes a bite, just like she wants. Apparently her favorite teacher says treats are better shared and she takes this advice very seriously. “He calls you E, so you should call him V.” 

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Eric says. “I’ve just always called him Vin.”

“That’s stupid,” Terry says.

Vince laughs. “You are pretty dumb, E.”

“I’m gonna call you V.”

“Ok, that’s fine, sweetheart,” Vince says, deciding not to feel guilty for the small indulgence of using the same endearment for her that her father uses. 

“And I want you to call me T.”

“I can do that.”

Terry turns her ice cream cone over to Vince after a few more bites and climbs down from his lap to return to the playground. Eric puts his phone away and they both watch her on the swings. “You know, with as little as we see you, you’re still her favorite uncle.”

“Call me godfather, that sounds so much cooler.” 

“Yeah, whatever, wiseguy.” 

They’re sitting close together on the park bench. Vince is wearing sunglasses and a hat, not because the day’s so bright, although it is, but because he’s not looking to be approached. He wouldn’t mind, though, if someone recognized him, and took a photo from afar. That’s just part of his life, and sometimes he comes across images posted online that he saves for himself, glad to have them. They’re capturing what it looks like, but sometimes it also reminds him of what happened, of what he felt. “Can I tell you something?” 

“That depends,” Eric says. “Do I want to hear it?”

“I don’t know. It- it might be a little fucked up. I’m not sure.” Terry jumps off of her swing from a relatively high point, and Vince feels Eric tense beside him and then relax as soon as she lands safely on her feet. “I like that she has dark hair.”

“What?”

“Terry’s hair, it looks like mine.” 

Eric smiles. “You know, I have this photo, of you carrying her, and Sloan walking beside you, and, yeah- she definitely looks like she could be your kid.” He nudges Vince in the side with his elbow. “It’s not fucked up, dude. Or, if it is, then I’m fucked up, too.”

 

This time, when he leaves, when the car’s waiting, with his bags in the backseat, when he’s saying goodbye to them at their front door, and Sloan says, “Come back soon. This is your home, too,” he leans in and hugs her. 

“I know,” he murmurs at her ear. “Thank you.”


End file.
